As we contemplate the memories of spending Thanksgiving with our grown children and begin to focus on the celebration of Advent and the eventual birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, it is humbling to reflect on how our ministry was blessed by your presence. Some of you we have known for just a brief time, but others have been long-time, steadfast friends and supporters and for that we want to say “THANKS”!We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 1: 2 -3 NIV).
To recognize God’s greatness, here are some recent ministry highlights and what He has planned for us…
What can you do to help us… and how can we help you?
We thank you and ask for your continued prayers as we offer ourselves in service to our Living Lord!
Peace,
Rick & Lee Ann
We continue to be amazed how God has revealed Himself to us in many new and refreshing ways! In times of uncertainty, He was always there with His quiet voice to reassure us – we praise Him for his faithfulness!
After lengthy discussions amongst our leadership team, Partnership Ministries has decided to change our name to Beyond Partnership with a tag line of Serving Their Vision Together – stay tuned for updates! The reasons were many and some were purely a simplification of our vision…
Your prayers are the foundation from which we function best – without folks like you praying and advocating for our ministry, this all would be an uphill battle! If you would want to have us present the vision and focus of our ministry at your church or with your small group, we would love to hear from you! 
We ask that you consider financially supporting our ministry with an ongoing contribution (monthly, quarterly, etc.) – we are reliant on folks just like you to partner with us. We promise to be faithful stewards of your investment in our ministry and desire to welcome you as “part of our family”!
Wow, we have just passed our first year anniversary with Partnership Ministries – and what a year it has been! God has revealed Himself to us in many new and refreshing ways! In times of uncertainty, He was always there with His quiet voice to reassure us – and also by placing many people in our pathway to offer encouragement!
Over the last week, the leadership team of Partnership Ministries met to review this past year and also to make plans for the coming year with regards to
To recognize God’s greatness, here are a few of our ministry highlights… After attending 5 weeks of immersion language school in Granada, Nicaragua, I met up with our home church’s second team – this time, while still in Nicaragua, we ventured back to Bluefields where we finished the church our teams started in 2007. The bond that began last year was reinforced and God’s love abounded!
In April, I represented Partnership Ministries at the Mission Mid-Atlantic conference – from the first day, I sensed God’s presence guiding me into new relationships with churches and individuals – ones that are developing now and allowing me to spread the “good word” throughout that region!Just last month, Lee Ann and I led our first team that was not from our home church – this time, we returned to Honduras with a team from Calvary Baptist in Warwick, NY to work alongside of Humberto Del Arca. In La Ceiba, we helped the hard working team of nationals build a kitchen next to an existing church building – we also ran a VBS program for children of the area. God continues to show His hand in the ministries there!
What can you do to help us?
Your prayers are the foundation from which we function best – without folks like you praying and advocating for our ministry, this all would be an uphill battle!
We also ask that you consider financially supporting our ministry with an ongoing contribution (monthly, quarterly, etc.) – we are reliant on folks just like you to partner with us. We promise to be faithful stewards of your investment in our ministry and desire to welcome you as “part of our family”! If you would want to have us present the vision and focus of our ministry at your church or with your small group, we would love to hear from you!
To donate to our ministry, go to this website - http://www.missionsdoor.org/donate
There are many options to sending your donations to the mission in support of our ministry! (details for all options are fully explained on the website above)
By Credit Card
By Personal Check sent to: Missions Door 2530 Washington Street Denver, CO 80205-3142
By EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer)
We have come a long way in this first year of service, but we have a long way to go. We thank you for your interest and ask you to continue to pray for us as we offer ourselves in service to the Living Lord!
Peace,
Rick & Lee Ann Myers
Greetings once more from upstate NY! Summer is upon us and the thought of anything but blue skies and warm days just escapes me! God’s creation all around us gives us a mere glimpse of His handiwork! Since we last shared with you, God has also shown Himself to us, so we offer this update in His name…the power of the 3 P’s… Praise + Patience + Prayer!
Praise!
On June 1st, Lee Ann and I returned to our former home church in Pennsylvania, Christ Covenant Church - it was definitely a wonderful homecoming. We were honored by the warm reception - this was our first time returning as missionaries. We look forward to someday planning a church building trip with this congregation!
I have returned from California to help fellow Partnership short term trip leaders Eric & Gloria Hodel at the Harvest Gathering missions conference. We spoke with many folks about the plans and vision of Partnership Ministries. Eric & Gloria are dear friends that have been positive role models for us and helped Lee Ann and I develop our new and improved retirement program – thank God for their dedication and desire to serve our Lord!
Recently, I made a connection with a company that I want to introduce you to – Total Resources International. They specialize in First Aid and Emergency Preparedness Products – and it is clear that the company was founded with God’s heart in mind. We were blessed by them just a couple weeks ago – they donated a case of first aid kits to share with our church building teams. Thanks especially to their National Sales Manger, Joe Fisher for their generosity!
Patience!
Recently, one of my devotions was based on the scripture verse of John 16: 13 - But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. Sometimes, we need to wait on what God has in store for us. Recently I was personally challenged by this concept and God showed Himself to me just yesterday. As some of you may know, there was a TACA airline crash at the Tegucigalpa airport on May 30th which closed indefinitely. Immediately, we contacted Humberto Del Arca, our contact in Honduras, to move to another area closer to the San Pedro Sula airport. These changes were made without skipping a beat, but in the process, our purchased airline tickets got all messed up and up until yesterday, I was not sure we could even fly into Honduras. We were offered a full refund but at this point any existing tickets from other airlines were 40-50% more expensive than what we had already purchased. After spending over fifteen hours on the phone and online, speaking with six CSR’s from three airlines, I was blessed by meeting up with Edward from Confidential Airlines. What seemed impossible to others was simple to Edward… within 3 minutes on the phone, his “we can do this!” was music to my ears! Thank God for that lesson from the book of John!
Prayer!
In 2 weeks, Lee Ann and I will depart for La Ceiba Honduras to meet up with the team from Calvary Baptist. We will be working alongside the ministry of Humberto del Arca and the many pastors of that region. Please keep us in your prayers for God to reveal Himself to us and the team in a way that could only be construed as His… that the team forms a bond that will last for many years…that we are invisible and that the people in the village we serve see God at work!
We are setting up meetings for later this summer and into the fall – there will be a lot of car travel and possibly time away from Lee Ann – please pray for traveling safety as well as for us during times of being away from each other.
How can you help – can you feel the power?
Become financial partners with us – we thank all our faithful supporters but for those who are new to us, we promise to be faithful stewards of your contributions and desire to welcome you as “part of the family”. We have been blessed recently with several generous one-time gifts as well as promises for ongoing support, but we need to press on – we are just over 40% supported now and are striving to achieve full support by year’s end. For details, please either contact us to meet face to face or go to http://www.missionsdoor.org/ and click on “donate” button
If you have been blessed by a short-term missions experience, spread the good word to those that haven’t heard!
Please continue to pray for our ministry…for all the connections we are and will make with churches and individuals.
Your prayers and financial support mean more than we can express in words – may God continue to bless you and yours!
Peace, Rick & Lee Ann
Greetings from upstate NY! Our valley is full of green and blooming flowers, shrubs and trees now and the promise of long days and warmth is being fulfilled daily – it is great to be alive in upstate New York! OK, it is a bit dramatic, but when you have 6-7 months of grey and colder climate, you gotta get excited about this time of year!
Great meetings!
On the Road Again!
Making Plans!
How can you help?
We appreciate your interest and concern for our ministry – may God continue to bless you and yours!
Peace,
Rick & Lee Ann
Greetings from Oneonta, NY! Spring is trying its best to arrive in upstate NY… we did have a hard frost this morning, so we may have to wait a couple more weeks! The tulips looked good for a little while! Lee Ann and I just returned from a week with our daughter and son in-law in South Carolina - it was fun to see the transformation of seasons as we headed south from NY to PA through MD, WV, VA and NC on the way to Spartanburg, SC. Azaleas and other flowering bushes and trees displayed their colors in South Carolina…we have faith that the browns will be replaced by greens and the other colors of Spring!
We have many opportunities to serve the Living God in our future with Partnership Ministries, but before I get into it, I want to thank all of our faithful prayer and financial supporters. Words cannot describe the reassurance we feel because of you… thanks! We are just over 31% in pledged support with many generous one-time gifts. As the news of our ministry gets out, we are attracting more and more partners…we look forward to the coming opportunities in the next few months. Please pray that the support discovery phase is fruitful and that we approach 100% support levels quickly so we can mobilize! If you are being lead to support us financially, please let me know – let’s talk!
We have a few things on our docket coming up… please remember us in prayer as we prepare for these and other approaching opportunities to share our ministry. Also as I plan for further my Spanish language study – amongst all this activity, I will need to concentrate on that again so my ministry will become more effective.
This past Sunday, Lee Ann and I presented in Franklin, NY at the Community Bible Church. We have a few friends there and also share a rich history. As board chair of the Central New York Youth for Christ, I worked closely with CBC. In this new capacity, I am excited about the opportunity to share the scope and vision of Partnership Ministries with this congregation! The congregation received us openly and some folks are interested in hearing more about how they can get involved with short-term missions.
Next week, I will team up with Steve Reed, our director and will be exhibiting and presenting our ministry at the annual conference of the Mid-Atlantic Conservative Baptist Association – we will have time to meet and share with many pastors and church leaders! MACBA geographically includes churches from Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, DC and West Virginia. We want to thank MACBA Executive Director Dr. Jim Leary for offering us this wonderful opportunity!
I am coordinating our first official team effort with our home church, Main Street Baptist and Ray Ramos and Edwin Colon – both are Missions Door spiritual warriors in Brooklyn. Ray is an urban church planter with two Recovery Houses of Worship in place – one in the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn and the other in Staten Island. Edwin is the pastor of the New Baptist Temple in Brooklyn centrally located with a wide spectrum of opportunities to serve and glorify God!
We are also working with Calvary Baptist Church in Warwick, NY as they are finalizing their plans to travel to Catacamas Honduras to help build a church there from July 26 – August 2. It is exciting to guide this team through the team building and fundraising phases – we look forward to sharing this potentially life-changing experience with them! Please pray for our next meetign with this team on May 10th as we begin the process of preparing VBS crafts.
We hear wonderful stories from Rigoberto Reyes, our bother in Christ in Nicaragua who we have partnered with… the church we just helped build in El Pochote is growing and flourishing. It seems like success breeds success as we also hear of other smaller community churches that are now meeting in homes are eager to have their own worship centers built. The ministry in Bluefields continues to amaze me – a sister church has already sprung from the church we started to build last year and completed this past February. Rigo has plans to build a church building for this growing congregation as well as maybe venturing up the coast into some new communities. Praise God for the many people who have heard and responded to the Gospel of Jesus in these areas! Please continue to pray for the Nicaraguan Bible Extension Institute – that it continues to grow and to train new pastors to serve the entire country of Nicaragua.
Do you want to hear about Partnership Ministries or learn about how your church or organization can be blessed by serving God via short-term missions, please give me a call – I am available to talk on the phone or to travel and meet with you at your facility. Take it from someone who was blessed himself – it is awesome!
The two Nicaragua church building team will report on their experiences in El Pochote and Bluefields Nicaragua. Come on out and see how they saw God at work!
We look forward to sharing with everyone!
This update is just in from Chinandega where a medical missions team offered their time and talents... Partnership Ministries was asked to offer logistical and translation support. But what resulted was way beyond our wildest dreams! We serve an awesome God!
But God decided to show us that we need to continue to have faith even when it seems impossible that things will work out. In our minds, the last option we had to make things work out was using Pastor Marlon's (Chinandega) brother who is director of Radio Sandino to have a meeting with Rafael, Daniel Ortega's son, who with just a word can make almost anything happen in Nicaragua.
The appointment two days before the group's arrival was put off until the next day, but at the exact same hour of when the meeting with Rafael was originally scheduled, Rigo had to go to the health ministry, and believe it or not, they apologized to him (extremely uncommon in Nicaraguan govt., especially with Sandinistas) and gave us the fast track to get everything approved. Not only that, but they didn't send anyone to the airport to inspect the group, nor to the sites, which they normally do with medical teams. In fact, They called Rigo 3 times asking if they could help in any way. Now we can see there was a huge spiritual battle going on, and it ended at 3pm on Feb 28 when the wall at the health ministry crashed to the ground, and everything else fell into place at the same time. 
As a result of the medical team, there are now 3 fledgling church groups in three villages. In one they will give the church land to build, in another they want the church to have services in the community center, and in the other a woman has offered her home for church meetings. Thanks for all your prayers for us. Mike
It has been 2 months since our first team left Oneonta on December 26th to help build a church in the tiny village of El Pochote, Nicaragua just outside the town of Masaya. We departed there on January 6th with all but the roof completed – but within 2 weeks, the roof was added and we hear reports from Rigoberto Reyes, our missionary contact in Nicaragua ,that new families are worshipping there. We were blessed by the experience and we pray that the congregation becomes a beacon of light in that mountain community.
God is Big in Bluefields… Jesus Walks the Streets
What’s Next??
The team from Main Street Baptist in Oneonta has returned from Nicaragua and by now is back into the swing of their normal routines... the small church community in El Pochote just finished their worship service in their new sanctuary! Boy, did we have an awesome experience in the process!
My last visit to El Pochote was after the team from Oneonta left Bluefields last April… I was able to tag along with Rigoberto Reyes, Aaron Palmatier and Mike Najjar to venture to El Pochote amongst other destinations in that region. The church at that time was a dilapidated structure that needed to be torn down. Not only was it in poor condition, it also would be too small for the potential growth of this church community.
So, after our arrival on site on December 27th, we started working and the church emerged from the flat ground. Slowly but surely we organized into jobs that utilized our skill strengths and progress was immediately noticeable! Digging foundations was necessary to begin the process of wall building, so immediately the team got busy. Columns needed to be made out of rebar and formed metal rods… column manufacturing was one project that never ended throughout the week – both upright vertical columns within the walls and cross beams required the same technology! 
Concrete had to be made, but first materials had to be moved about the work site… the sand and rock were delivered by larger trucks and sometimes had to be moved twice to a strategic location. The building blocks for the church were large quarried stones… weighing just about 100 lbs. each, so for those with the energy and stamina were enlisted to move these closer to where the masons could use them.
Most noticeable throughout the week were the relationships that were formed between our team and the local folks that volunteered to help build the church. Actually some traveled from as far away as Chinandega… about 2-1/2 hours away… others from nearby Nindiri also contributed their time and skill to accomplish the overall goal – it was awesome to see! Everyone has their sties of how they were impacted… all I can say is that as a first time leader of a team, it was so cool to see how we all cooperated despite the language barrier… Christ’s love was shared… and that is universal!
During the week, our team shared with the local children through puppet dramas depicting Bible stories, singing and craft making. Even the simplest crafts became treasured keepsakes. The children seem to have a natural ability to open up quickly and the teams responded with their creativity. Many times you would see kids playing with team members… sure the building needed to be done, but most importantly, relationships were formed. Jesus taught us about relationships… and that lesson will last a lifetime!
By the time for our departure, just 9 days after we arrived, the church was completed all except for the roof… and that could be finished by local volunteers. One of our team members, Justin Leuttger carved a sign into one for the quarried 
sytones with 
the name of the church - it was such an awesome gift from Justin... and it was a gift in return to Justin when the stone was placed on the last wall... God gives gifts to those who freely give of themselves!
All week, we were blessed by the awesome service of our sisters in the kitchen… out of a basic structure cam food for our army of workers… I do not think I noticed any dissatisfied customers all week! What a true blessing this ministry is… the women are up at least 3 hours before the team and spend most of the day preparing and cleaning up after the current and next day’s meals. The women always greeted the tired and hungry workers with a smile or a kind word… I will never forget them!
On the last day, while preaching for the first time in the new sanctuary, the pastor, Gonsolo stood and praised God from the new pulpit area, raising his hands to the open sky… he looked like he felt very comfortable. We worshiped together and after tearful goodbyes, we departed for our hotel in Masaya for the last time.
After all that hard work, we headed off to Granada for well deserved R&R&R… rest, relaxation and reflection. A definite highlihght was the canopy tour at Volcan Mombacho... everyone tried and and survived to tell their story! It may take a few weeks or months for some folks to comprehend how God wants them to use this trip… for some, maybe a career change is in the future… some need to make college choices… some have to ponder post college career choices… some will consider how to serve God more sincerely… the list goes on I am sure!
